


The Rise of Sir Pendergast the Great

by ScantiBelze



Category: Disenchantment (Cartoon 2018)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Demons, F/F, F/M, Fairies, Fantasy, Heaven & Hell, Heroes & Heroines, Humor, Kings & Queens, Knights - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Martial Arts, Medieval, Multi, Mythology References, No betas (we die like men!), Quests, Resurrection, Romance, Self-Discovery, Steampunk, Supernatural Elements, Swords & Sorcery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29520252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScantiBelze/pseuds/ScantiBelze
Summary: After the tragic events of Disenchantment: Part Three, Sir Pendergast embarks on an otherworldly quest that may give him another chance at life. Introducing new characters and deepening the Dreamland mythology, follow our knight's journey through Heaven, Hell, power, and love. New chapters release every week.
Relationships: Pendergast (Disenchantment)/Original Female Character(s)





	1. Halt, Who Goes There?

**Author's Note:**

> "Disenchantment" and all its original locations and characters are owned by Matt Groening and Netflix.

A cloaked figure flies on a cluster of wind over the hills, towards Dreamland.  
They float downward right before the outer gates, studying the heads on pikes flanking the path, as if looking for someone.  
Shaking their head, they increase the strength of the wind and soar over the wall.  
The streets of Dreamland are in complete chaos, buildings boarded up and whoever remains just seems to be looting.  
The cloaked stranger approaches the castle. The drawbridge is up, the exterior in as much disarray as the city. They fly over the portcullis and into the royal courtyard with ease.  
Trashed, ransacked, and abandoned, the presence of two knights sparring was more unsettling than reassuring.  
“Uh,” groans the fatter one. “Hey, Mertz, who is that?”  
“You’re Turbish, Turbish,” reminds his skinnier partner.  
“No,” Turbish pointed to the mystery person gliding over to them. “That!”  
With a start, Mertz points his sword; Turbish follows suit.  
“Halt,” cries Mertz. “Who, uh,” he pauses, as if forgetting his line. “Who...who goes...there! Yes, yes, uh, who goes there?”  
The stranger lands, and removes their cloak.  
A beautiful woman of earth-brown skin and twinkling green eyes stares back at them. Her flowing blue hair is highlighted with white, looking more like an icy river than tresses. Her dress is incredibly skimpy: A V-neck dipping below her navel barely covers her sizable chest, and a sheer skirt that slits down the front of each leg. Her belt has an assortment of bags and blades. Her feet are bare, but clean, and seem dainty, almost gliding instead of walking.  
Across her forehead are four diamonds: white, red, green, and blue, respectively. They seem natural, like they’re a part of her head, rather than just jewelry.  
She approaches Turbish and Mertz, who are shocked into silence.  
“I am Amalthea,” she says, in a quiet and melodious but concise and authoritative voice. “Of the Southern nymphs. Sir Pendergast and I met on one of his quests, two months ago. But the pendant he gave me--”  
She pulls a necklace from inside her scant bodice, inspiring the knights to lean in and stare at her chest instead of what she actually wants to show them.  
“--stopped shimmering. That can only mean his--that his heart has stopped beating.” Her voice chokes up, and she clutches the dull ruby pendant to her chest. “Please, tell me, is this true?”  
The knights actually drool while ogling her breasts.  
Amalthea slams their heads together, rocking their helmets shut and knocking Turbish and Mertz to the ground.  
“Ow,” protests Mertz, but then he says, “Oh, wait, yeah. I remember you! You’re that nymph who led us to those ruins.”  
“Oh yeah,” says Turbish. “You gave Sir Pendergast a map of the whole forest, magically, through kissing! You had to ride with him and kiss him the whole way.”  
“It was a big, confusing forest,” excuses Mertz.  
“Yes,” starts Amalthea, before Turbish interrupts:  
“Then when we got to the temple, you went in with Sir Pendergast, and he made us wait outside. Even through all of the shrieking.”  
“Shrieking, shaking, banging, grunting,” Mertz shakes his head. “Those ghosts must have been petrifying! Your bravery is to be commended, my lady.”  
“Yes,” Amalthea looks away and clears her throat awkwardly. “The ghosts. Petrifying. I remember.”  
“He keeps calling you a dream,” Mertz tells her. “Even though we tell him we saw you too. Never seems to believe us, or even listen.”  
“Yeah,” nods Turbish. “I even know that he takes an entire keg of ale to the town river to drink by himself and cry and sing nymph ballads over and over until he passes out with a hand down his pants.” Turbish holds Amalthea’s gaze with an unwavering smile. “I see him do it. Every time.”  
Both Mertz and Amalthea take wide, cautious steps away from Turbish, who finally blinks, one eye at a time.  
Amalthea addresses Mertz, “You said he ‘keeps’ calling me a dream?”  
“Yeah,” Mertz turns and heads towards one of the stables by the castle entrance. “He’ll be happy to see he’s wrong!”  
Amalthea excitedly follows Mertz to a weapons storage shed. He opens the doors, and she sees the clear glint and crest of Pendergast’s armor.  
“Pendergast!” She pushes past Mertz and into the shed. “My love, whatever are you--aah!”  
Her screams of horror reverberate around the courtyard, causing dark thunderclouds to gather.  
“Pendergast!”  
Amalthea runs to her love, clutching his chest. His armor is intact, but the body within is gray, cold, and buzzing with flies from the inside. Pendergast’s head isn’t even on his body, but lays unceremoniously in the corner with old, defective blades.  
Amalthea’s face streaming with tears, she blows the shed apart with blasts of fire from her hands. The only things left standing are the forge, Pendergast’s body, and the pile of rusted swords around his head.  
She rounds on a terrified Turbish and Mertz in a rage, skin crackling with sparks of blue and purple magic.  
“What is the meaning of this?” Her voice is still quiet, the effect more threatening than if she had hollered.  
The wind picks up; the knights notice the storm around them getting worse.  
“Why,” Amalthea continues, her voice growing softer as her anger builds. “Is your leader, the greatest knight of Dreamland, rotting away in a storage shed?” The last four words are a legit whisper. But Amalthea leans in on the grovelling, frightful knights so closely, they can still hear her over the clamouring thunder and sudden torrential rain.  
Mertz manages to make words: “He--He’s not r--rotting. He still gives us orders, he told us to put him in there!”  
“Y--Yeah,” concurs Turbish. “Since the Arch-Druidess shot him in the chest and cut his head off, he’s been really stiff. Likes to just, stand there, and give advice.”  
“Give advice? Give orders?” Amalthea cocks her eyebrow, both perplexed and enraged. With magic swirling around her arms, she lifts both Mertz and Turbish by their collars with ease. “Here’s an order, from the living: Load his body, and his armor, and his sword, into that cart over there. Now.”  
“Well,” counters Turbish. “We’ll have to check with him, and see if it’s alright.”  
Amalthea throws them against the inside courtyard wall. They drop to the ground, moaning with pain. A bolt of lightning just barely misses hitting them.  
“NOW!”  
The knights run to where the shed used to be, lift Penderghast’s armored body, and carry it to the cart.  
Amalthea picks up his head and shakes the maggots out of the inside.  
“My love.” She shuts his eye and wraps the head in a silken bag and holds it close. “You deserve a true warrior’s burial.”  
Turbish and Mertz return for his sword and shield, and the three of them load and cover the cart. Amalthea puts her cloak back on and, still clutching Pendergast’s head, gets in the driver’s seat.  
“Can we come with you?” asks Turbish.  
“No.”  
Amalthea blows at them. Despite not exhaling too hard, Turbish and Mertz are both sent sprawling over the wall and down the waterfall with intense force and speed.  
She then waves the water from the trough over to her with one hand, and beckons a slab of dirt to rise with the other. Wriggling and snapping her fingers, she molds the water and dirt into two horses, and hitches them to the wagon.  
Amalthea whispers to the head in her arms, her horses of water and earth pretty much driving themselves: “How they treated you is unforgivable! I’m so sorry, my love.” She embraces what little she has left of Pendergast, her lip quivering. “You deserved better. We deserved better!”  
Leaving Dreamland behind, the cart goes into the Enchanted Forest, overlapping with shadow.


	2. For Heaven's Sake

Luci stomps and puffs around Heaven, kicking over tiny clouds as if they were rocks.  
“This is such bull,” he rants to himself. “I should be down there, in Hell, helping Bean. She’s wandering down there, all by herself, with Dagmar on her tail. I’ve got to get God to smite me, somehow.”  
He bumps into somebody.  
“Excuse me,” says the person.  
Luci looks up at the sound of their voice.  
“Pendergast?” he cries.  
Pendergast seems even more surprised to see Luci. “Princess Bean’s talking cat? Are you, uh, are you in the right place?”  
“No!” snaps Luci. “I should be in Hell, helping Bean.”  
“Helping Bean? In Hell? Has she died?”  
“No,” Luci explains to him. “Dagmar dragged her down there to get married, but Bean escaped. I watched the whole thing, but since she’s wandering around aimlessly in Hell now, I can’t get a visual anymore.”  
He swirls the clouds at his feet into a seeing circle, which shows nothing but static.  
“This does not bode well.” Pendergast ponders, then sighs. “But I don’t see what we can do about it.”  
“Being headless sucks,” agrees Luci.  
“How was your journey through the otherworldly desert to get here?”  
“What are you talking about? I got straight here.”  
“Are you serious?” Pendergast frowns. “I journeyed for what felt like months. It was horrible! No monsters except for the ones that rose from my own head.” He shivers. “So much self-reflection!”  
“Hey, gotta love the new eye, though,” Luci indicates to Pendergast’s restored eye.  
The knight shrugs. “I suppose. I’m not used to it, honestly. I keep scratching it.”  
He draws his nails across his open right eye. “Ow.”  
Luci looks down to where the clouds part at Pendergast’s feet. Five people dressed in cloaks are trying to carry Zog down a narrow hallway.  
“Whoa,” says Luci, interested. “What’re you watching?”  
“King Zog,” Pendergast sighs. “I truly failed him.”  
“Yeah,” Luci concurs. “Your death literally drove him insane. Look at that! I mean, he totally thought you were breaking him out, and getting him to safety. But, instead, he saw your head on a pike, and had to come to the realization that he was going to be buried alive on the spot. Man, they’re shooting drugged darts at him! But he’s still rampaging! This is awesome. I mean, even a great, violent warrior king like Zog would crack under that level of failure from his most trusted ally. The only person he believed would come through. Boom, they got him!”  
Pendergast only manages to let out a small, sorry sound.  
“Yeah,” Luci continues. “The knights, like, totally fell apart too. Bean had to rely on Turbish and Mertz when she was queen--”  
“Dear God,” Pendergast clutches his head in shock. “Bean, as queen? Without a man? But who commanded the army? She’s not even allowed in the council chamber!”  
“--I mean, it’s kind of no wonder Dreamland fell into complete ruin once the ogres attacked.”  
“Ogres? Aah!” Pendergast kicks a bigger cloud, dissolving it to pieces. “My death was a complete waste! I should be down there, fighting!”  
Luci allows his laughter to subside naturally, wiping a tear from his eye.  
“Hoo,” he sighs. “Thanks man, I needed that cheering up. Now I think I’m ready to check on my body.” Luci waved his hand around the space in the clouds, just as King Zog gets injected with a pink potion.  
Luci stops when he sees his headless body being carried away by the Trogs.  
“Trogs?” he cries. “Where are they taking me? Hey! Hey!”  
“They can’t hear you,” wails Pendergast. “Believe me.”  
“They’re throwing me in a pit? And just walking away? Pfft.” Luci taps his foot. “I mean, it’s kind of expected. But still!”  
“I wish they would have thrown me in the corpse pit,” scoffs Pendergast. “At least given me the dignity of being dead.”  
“Why? What’d they do to your body?”  
“They keep it in the weapons shed!” shouts Pendergast.  
Luci chuckles.  
“Turbish and Mertz!” Pendergast continues, loudly ranting over Luci’s increasing mirth. “Those halfwit bastards, propped me up against the forge and threw my head in the refuse pile! And they talk to it! Not even my head, they take ‘orders’ from the maggot-infested hole in my neck!”  
Luci is cry-laughing. “Oh, man, I have to see this!”  
He swirls the pool until he finds Pendergast’s body.  
“Ugh,” Pendergast turns around. “I can’t even look without wanting to smite them. All those years of using them for human bait, or human shields, when I should have just decapitated them!”  
“Wow,” states Luci sarcastically. “Wonder why you didn’t get right into heaven.”  
“Ha, ha,” retorts Pendergast.  
The sound of sweet singing emerges from the vision.  
“Wow,” says Luci. “Either your body has been moved, or Turbish and Mertz have made some sexy new friends.”  
“What?” Pendergast rushes over and looks in the pool.  
He gasps.  
His body is still in its armor, but it’s been polished and adorned with flowers and smoking sage. It lies on a boat filled with firewood, spices, oil drums, and dry leaves, on the banks of the Enchanted River.  
Beautiful nymphs surround it, positioning Pendergast’s sword, halberd, and shield.  
Nearby, a group of rugged heroes and monsters sniff into handkerchiefs and pints. A cluster of Borgs plant their swords in the sand around Pendergast’s body. Walruses swim down the river, from the ocean, singing.  
Tessa the giant blows her nose, putting out some of the sage.  
“Sorry,” she sniffs.  
Junior The Ogre taps her shoulder comfortingly. His ogre cohorts raise their glasses for another toast, as Vip and Vap climb into the boat to relight the sage.  
Pendergast watches, furrowing his brow. “I don’t understand.”  
Amalthea comes into view, carrying Pendergast’s head. It, too, has been cleaned, the hair washed and eyepatch removed. The empty socket is stuffed with spices, flowers, and herbs.  
She keeps gasping and hiccuping, her face red and swollen with excessive crying.  
“Amalthea.” Pendergast leans into the vision, almost falling into it.  
Luci pulls him back. “Whoa, there, pal.”  
“But that’s Amalthea!” explains Pendergast.  
“That doesn’t explain anything,” replies Luci.  
The knight watches his funeral, tears forming. “I thought she was a dream. A hallucination from quest fatigue. Mixed with dehydration and light starvation. Some mild fever, a possible concussion, intense loneliness and too much exposure to Turbish and Mertz!”  
Amalthea places the head on the neck of the body, and puts an eyepatch over the socket. She stops for a while, kneeling beside the ready corpse.  
The pig Prince Merkimer drapes his hooves over the side of the boat, looking down at Pendergast’s body.  
“Sir Knight and I had good times together,” he says reverently. “He was a man, a manly man! Who understood the duties of debauchery and the pleasures of brutality.”  
The ogres and Borgs nod in agreement. So do Pendergast and Luci up in Heaven.  
“Let us not forget his legacy,” continues Merkimer. “Let us, every day, carry the memory of Sir Pendergast with the respect he commanded in life.”  
Everyone cheers and raises their glass.  
“Wow,” remarks Luci. “Didn’t think Prince Piggy could be so sentimental.”  
Merkimer eyes Amalthea up and down. “You know,” he says to her. “Sir Knight and I--” He nudges close to her, brushing his snout against her cheek. “--shared just about everything--”  
Amalthea smacks Merkimer away, sending him sailing over the trees.  
“Sa-a-ad!” The pig’s cry disappears with him.  
Luci laughs. “Never mind! But, seriously, man, you and her?”  
Penderghast responds with a dreamy smile. “Best three days and nights of my life. I think it actually cured my fever.”  
At the funeral, a larger nymph than all the others taps her foot impatiently. She has blue hair, similar to Amalthea’s, green skin, and nothing but a cloak of moss at her shoulders. The diamonds across her head, too, are red, white, green, and blue. But she has a fifth one, a massive one in the very center of her forehead, that matches the green of her skin, with a strange line going horizontally across the middle.  
Pendergast points at her. “She is the one who cast me away. Amalthea’s mother, the nymph goddess Deme.”  
“Ooh,” coos Luci. “You and her too?”  
“No!” Pendergast looks disgusted. “She tried to kill me!”  
“Ahem,” the nymphs fall silent for their princess. “Sir Pendergast of Dreamland, their only tall, dark, and handsome knight. With true honor, noble training, and rippling abs.”  
All the nymphs, heroes, and monsters nod in agreement. Deme rolls her eyes.  
“Sir Pendergast possessed unrivaled loyalty. An instinct for leadership, coupled with fearlessness in battle and a hard, rugged sense of life.” Amalthea wipes a tear and needs a moment to collect herself.  
Pendergast reaches forward, wanting to stroke her cheek.  
“He died the way he lived: honorably, serving his king. A true chivalrous knight, protector of his realm. Perhaps--” Amalthea starts struggling to speak, her voice is choking so much. “Perhaps the last true knight of Dreamland.”  
“To Dreamland’s last true knight,” the attendees concur. They proceed to drench the boat and body with wine, beer, and oil.  
Amalthea kisses Pendergast’s corpse on the lips, lightly.  
Pendergast, in Heaven, puckers his lips as if reciprocating.  
“Ugh,” groans Luci. “I wanted to see half-crazed numbnuts talk to an open neck.”  
Amalthea claps her hands, then lights a fire on the boat and pushes it onto the river.  
As it drifts, water splashes, putting the fire out.  
Amalthea groans, and claps again. The pyre ignites, but then bumps into a rock, causing a bigger wave that puts it out.  
“Aah!” cries Amalthea.  
Luci starts laughing.  
The nymphs follow their princess in firing flames at the funeral pyre. They all land, but also go out.  
“How do they expect to make fire on top of water?” Pendergast shakes his head. “I suppose it’s the thought that counts.”  
“Let’s see if I can find Bean,” says Luci, swirling the vision pool.  
Pendergast lays on his back. Picking up some cloud, he molds it into Amalthea’s face. He kisses it, but it disappears, leaving him sighing.  
“There she is!” cries Luci.  
Through a thin layer of static, Bean can be seen, crouching in some alleyway, as if trying to hide.  
“I have to find her!” Luci stood and raced in the direction of God’s throne.  
“I’ll come with you,” Pendergast caught up to him. “I’m dying for a quest.”  
“Really? Cause it would involve getting smote to Hell. Do you want to get smote--smitten?--smote to Hell?”  
Pendergast thinks, then shrugs. “Well, you brought that elf back to life through Hell. Maybe that could work for me?”  
“Hey, yeah,” Luci went for the vision pools again. “Let’s see where your body ends up and we’ll--”  
In the vision of Pendergast’s funeral, a flame finally catches long enough for Amalthea to spread it with magic. Pendergast’s body is completely consumed in flame while everyone cheers.  
“Ooh,” sympathizes Luci. “Tough break, pal.


	3. Nearer, My God, To Thee

“Why should I,” says God. “Send two fine, good souls to such a place?”  
“To rescue Bean,” implores Luci. “She’s in trouble!”  
“She sure finds herself in Hell often,” God retorts. “For being alive.”  
“This time she was brought there by her mother,” explains Luci. “Dagmar dragged her down, in an elevator.”  
“Yes, I saw,” says God impatiently. “I’m afraid it’s not my business to interfere with the affairs of Hell.”  
“But you interfere everywhere else,” cries Luci. “You could interfere to actually help someone.”  
“Alas,” God sighs. “In this case, I actually cannot. I truly have no reach within Hell. Teabeanie may be on her own.”  
“Then she’ll never get out,” says Luci dejectedly. “I have to help her!”  
“Oh,” says God wistfully. “Such is the attitude that got you to Heaven in the first place. That’s what I love about you, Luci. Willing to risk it all for those you care about!”  
“Aah!” Luci threw up his hands in frustration. “Stop reminding me of my good qualities! Just smite me already!”  
God laughs. “I can’t just smite everyone who asks me, Luci. I want my children near me.”  
“I’m not your child, though! I’m Satan’s.”  
“Adopted children mean just as much to me, my son.”  
“Aah!” Luci storms off, kicking and muttering to himself.  
Pendergast steps forward. “My Lord,” he says, professionally. “Might I embark on this holy quest in your honor?”  
God laughs. “Oh, Pendergast. I understand you’re bored. The life you’ve had, your noble loyalty, you’ve earned your right to relax for eternity. Besides, once I send you to Hell, there is no coming back to Heaven. Ever.”  
“Even if I was going as your champion?” asks Pendergast. “Just on temporary assignment?”  
“I’ve never sent someone on ‘temporary assignment’ to Hell. I don’t think it can be done. I’m sorry. Maybe some time in the Hall of Warriors will help you feel better?”

***

A stone building with massive columns glows with golden light and is loud with raucous laughter, clanging cutlery, and energetic music.  
Inside, rows and rows of tables are laden with pints, beasts stuffed and roasted, decadent cakes stacked into towers, and knights being served by chubby angels.  
Pendergast and Luci sit at the bar, despondent over their golden pints of ambrosia ale.  
“Hey,” the bartender says, coming over. “Why so glum? You two are in Heaven! You should be content.”  
“Content?” Pendergast yells. “Content? I never wanted contentment! I wanted action! Violence! Glory. To have my visage painted on a mural in the castle, somewhere in a place of honor. That’s it! Just a freaking mural! Maybe even a song or two. Is that too much to ask? No, Dreamland didn’t even give me a funeral!”  
He throws his goblet with such might that it breaks one of the kegs open behind the bartender.  
“Whoa,” the bartender tries to clean up the mess.  
Luci fills an empty goblet and hands it to Pendergast.  
“Jeez,” he says. “Better out than in, huh?”  
“I didn’t realize it bothered me so much.” The knight took a swig of the ale. “Until I saw the funeral Amalthea gave me. Why didn’t I go back to that glenn? I could have found her. I could have had her.”  
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Luci assures him. “You thought she was a hallucination, from a concussion. It happens! Head injuries do crazy things.”  
“Yeah,” sighs Pendergast. “Like make you fall in love. Maybe I should have sought more contentment in life.”  
“Pfft, contentment’s for schmucks. I mean, look at these schmucks.”  
Two warriors start fighting, which grows into a pile of all the warriors fighting.  
“At least this is the one place in Heaven where they allow a good brawl.” Seeming to cheer up a little, Pendergast turns to drink and watch the scuffle.  
Luci follows suit, giggling at the more vicious punches. “Man, how have I never been here before?”  
“You had to have died while in service to your king,” explains Pendergast. “Or your lady, or country, or while resisting temptation.”  
“Who’s gotten in here for that last one?”  
Now Pendergast chuckles. “Pfft, not a soul.”  
They toast their goblets, grinning across breaking glass and cracking jaws.

***

With the clouds of Heaven a magenta sunset color, Pendergast and Luci stumble out of the Hall of Warriors, their pupils largely dilated.  
“Whoa,” says Luci.  
“Yeah,” agrees Pendergast.  
“Standing up too fast sucks!”  
They weave, then their pupils shrink back down to normal as they right themselves.  
“That’s better,” says Luci. “I can’t believe we’re incapable of getting drunk in Heaven!”  
“I wish there was something,” muses Pendergast. “To get that song about Aloysius the Repititious out of my head!” Pendergast swirls the clouds into a vision pool at his feet.  
In it, it is nighttime. Amalthea sleeps, naked, inside a massive tree. Her bed is a soft-looking flower, surrounded by random trinkets and glowing plants. A dirk rests in her hand, the sheath bearing Pendergast’s crest.  
In Heaven, Pendergast puts a hand on his heart and has to bite back tears.  
“Blech,” cries Luci. “Let’s check on Bean.”  
The vision changes to Bean in Hell, still hiding. But this time, in disguise, in a different alley.  
“Hold on,” Luci squints, staring at her surroundings. “Yes! I know where that is! We have to get to her, before she moves again!”  
“We?” asks Pendergast. “But, I don’t have a body waiting for me.”  
“Come on,” goads Luci. “We’ll find you a new one. We’ll use Turbish, or Mertz.”  
“I do not want Turbish or Mertz’s bodies.”  
Luci winks. “Think about seeing Amalthea again.”  
Pendergast thinks about it. “I do not want Turbish or Mertz’s bodies.”  
“Fine,” concedes Luci. “Fair enough. I’ll just go by myself, then.”  
God appears in front of them, out of nowhere. Throne, Jerry, the works.  
“You are not,” He bellows. “Going to Hell, young man! And that! Is! FINAL!”


	4. Hell Is Others

Buildings curve and point upwards, stairways sticking out and leading to nowhere. The streets, too, descend and ascend with no purpose other than to confuse.  
Bean kicks a brick in frustration and it tumbles down a set of two-story stairs that really looked like they might go somewhere. Until the platform they led to floated away. “What is it with this place?”  
Bean has been wandering the alleys of hell in her tattered gown for what feels like days. Sleeping in trash and scrounging for supplies, however, seems to have kept Dagmar off her tail.  
“How did I even escape,” Bean says to herself. “All I remember is Mom, forcing me down the aisle, to him.” The image of her intended groom draws a frown across her face.   
“That stupid,” she shouts out loud. “Lying, manipulative weirdo!” She kicks another brick, popping a demon on the head below.  
“Ow!”  
“Sorry,” calls Bean. She sits on the steps, which start floating over the city. Sighing, she tries to remember everything that happened: She was being forced to her groom, he took her hand, her mother lit some type of incense, everything started to get fuzzy…  
“Bean,” he had whispered, taking her hand gently and speaking in the friendly tone he had used when they first met. “I understand the circumstances are less than ideal for you, but I don’t intend to be a bad husband.”  
His smile seemed sincere, reaching his eyes. Even his pointed, curly hair took on a joyful look.   
Music, Bean remembered the music. An organ belting some sort of familiar song…  
“We can be happy,” the man had continued, whispering despite the organ, leaning in close enough to be heard. “You and I. You have so many qualities I admire, and in due time, I think you’ll come to admire me. We do have so much to learn about one another, and I think we’ll enjoy doing it.” He had taken both her hands into his and looked deep in her eyes. “My love.”  
The music played. The memory was coming back; yes. Bean had listened to the organ, began to recognize the melody. The hated, repetitive, childish, demeaning melody.  
“The box!” she had cried. “That damn music box!”   
Her memory continues to sway. The incense had made Bean drunk and dreamy, almost complacently so. But knowing where she was, what that song was, made her snap.  
“Screw you, Alva!” she remembered screaming, flipping over the altar. “And screw you, Mom!”  
Her mother had hissed, flown toward her. Alva had attacked, grabbed her hands. She was able to flip him over fairly easily, but then other demons had arrived.   
“How did I escape?”  
A headache suddenly feels like it will cut her skull. She cries out, clutches at her temple. The pain subsides just as it came, but rays of blue shoot out from her fingers, incinerating nearby buildings.  
“Aah!” Bean tucks her hands in her armpits and shrinks against the stairs, hiding from the glances of curious demons below. She tries to look at her fingers, but the lightning shows itself as soon as she lifts them.  
“Oh my God,” she wraps her hands in her skirt. “We can not do that here!”  
Another headache tears through, but this time, it carries a memory: hitting Alva and his bodyguard demons with a single shot from her hands. They had flown through the air, completely charred, electricity pulsing through them.  
“What?” Dagmar had cried. “What? No! That should not have manifested yet!”  
Bean had spun around, as if drunk. “I said, screw you, Mom!”  
A blue blast had blinded the room. Her mother, also electrified, crashed into a pillar and crumpled to the bottom.  
Bean had incinerated the elevator trying to get it to work again. Then she ran.  
Bean’s headache, and her memory, resides. She’s left, suspended on moving stairs, staring up at Hell’s orange sky, panting.  
“Okay,” she tells herself, trying to calm down. She cautiously lifts her hands from her skirt, relieved to see them powerless and back to normal. “Whew. Okay, I have to get out of here. I have to save Elfo, find Lu--Lu--”   
Trying to say his name brings tears. She reaches in the back bustle of her dress and pulls out his head.  
“Luci,” she whispers, crying. “I’ll find you. You have to be around here, somewhere.”   
Putting him back in her bustle, she leans over the side of the stairs. Seeing a streetlamp approach, she jumps, grabs hold, and slides to the bottom. On the pole, she finds a poster with her likeness: WANTED. RETURN TO THE DARK LORD, ALIVE ONLY.  
“Well that’s just great.” Bean tears up the poster and looks around. “I have to find a disguise.”  
She starts off down the street, cautious to stay in the shadows. Lucky for her, the streets are practically empty, all attention drawn to the buildings she had broken down.  
“If I were a demon,” Bean asks herself. “Where would I find an outfit?”  
“Oh,” she hears a female-sounding demon say in passing. She hid against the alley wall, listening: “Any demon who’s anyone is getting their outfits at Belzeboutique, down Agony Drive. It’s just that way, can’t miss it.”  
“Wow,” says the demon’s friend. “Thanks for all that information.”  
As soon as their voices fade down the street, Bean risks running in the direction of Belzeboutique.

***

A department store with both revolving and automatic doors dominates an entire block. Like organically-grown diamonds, lit with yellow electricity from the inside.  
“Man,” Bean smiles despite herself. “Hell is cool.”   
The other buildings around seem to be made of similar gem material. Just as jagged as the rest of Hell, but blinding. Every demon walking amongst them are winged and at least seven feet tall.  
Bean sees numerous human souls being led around by chains in this wealthier-seeming part of town. They seemed to be pack mules, carrying packages and pulling ricksaws.   
Feeling inspired, Bean rummages through the trash and, indeed, finds a discarded chained collar.   
Slipping it on, she timidly steps out of the alley. A pair of large, intimidating demons snarl at her. She squeals and recoils.  
The demon pair laugh. “Stupid soul!” They keep walking, satisfied.  
Smiling to herself, Bean scurries to the automatic glass doors. Her fake posture of fear becomes very real, at the sight of the glass panels crashing together.   
She takes a deep breath. “Okay, let’s watch for them to open, then spring!”   
Getting in a sprinting stance, several demons give her weird looks or roll their eyes.   
Bean makes a run for it, “Aa-aa-aa-aah!”   
The doors open wide and she tumbles right in, somersaulting into a collar display.   
“Whoa.” She sees demons staring. “It’s, uh, it’s fine! I’m fine, my demon just threw me cause, you know, he’s huge.” Chuckling awkwardly, Bean waits for everyone to go about their business.  
Instead, they close in, punching and kicking.  
“Ow!” Bean blocks her face, but they attack everywhere else. “Hey!”  
She falls to the floor, and they kick for a solid minute before finally dispersing.   
“Hee hee,” one laughs. “I love beating up stupid souls.”  
“It’s so emotionally cleansing,” their friend agrees.  
Bean lays on the floor until the tight pain gripping her torso subsides. Coughing slightly, she manages to sit up and look around.  
“Well, I got through that.” She spits out a tooth. “Now let’s see…”  
A map of the store covers the entire wall. Apparently there are about ten subterranean levels.  
“Didn’t think naked demons would need such a big boutique,” Bean mutters. “I can’t even read these labels.”  
She starts walking straight, seeing racks and racks of leather straps, whips, chains, spiked shoes and gloves, and iron prods.  
“This is either for torture,” decides Bean. “Or fun.”  
“Or both!” a smaller demon than the rest comes out from behind a display of muzzles. He has wings, but is otherwise puny, wearing a blue bowtie and nothing else. He chuckles. “Depends on what your handler has planned.”  
“Oh,” says Bean, rubbing a growing knot on the back of her head. “Torture, definitely. Every time.”  
“Then I have the torture outfit for you!” He shows her to a counter of numerous clamps and cuffs. “Spiked Set comes with a belt, mask, boots, and iron maiden. Or the Leather Daddy comes with nooses, codpieces, and bodysuits.”  
“Bodysuits,” cries Bean. “Yes! Something black, and demon-like.”  
“The cat suit?” He pulls one out; it even has a tail.  
“That’s the one!”  
“That’ll be 399.”  
“Um...” Bean asks intrepidly, “399 what?”  
The demon groans. “You souls get dumber and dumber every century. 399 screams! Or I’ll take nightmares, but you’ll have to pay a convenience fee of 20 extra nightmares. Or I can take 40 psychotic breaks, whichever’s easiest for you.”  
“Uh, I don’t,” Bean rubs her neck. “I don’t have, uh, anything on me right now.”  
“Alright,” the demon takes everything back. “Just have your handler come back with the payment, and we’ll have a deal.”  
“Can I just put it on his tab? Or something?”  
“Sure.” The demon slaps the top of the counter, and a hole opens.   
He pulls up a human by his hair, punching his face violently for good measure. Leaving room for the human’s head to come through, the demon clamps the desk hole shut. The human chokes, with barely enough air to speak.   
The sales-demon looked back at Bean nonchalantly. “What’s his frequent customer number?”  
“Uh…”  
He sighs exasperatingly. “Zip code?”  
“Um,” Bean looks around frantically. “His name is Bee--Whip-- Torture--Cloak?”  
“Beewhip Torturecloak?”   
“Yes?”  
The demon slaps the desk-human. “You heard her!”  
“Beewhip Torturecloak!” the human shouts. “His frequent customer number is 21487, zip code 66614, birthdate January 7th…”  
“That’s enough!” The demon opened the neck-hole and shoved the human’s head back in, slamming it viciously. He looks back at Bean, calmly. “So what’ll it be?”  
“Just the cat suit,” says Bean. “Please.”

***

Bean tries to find a place to change, but everywhere she walks, demons beat her down. Physically. Stepping on her, taking kicks, one even grabs Bean by her hair and throws her. It’s all she can do to make it to the frightening doors with her box intact.   
“Aah!” She charges through them without stopping, almost running completely into the street. She pivots and ducks into the darkest, closest alley.  
“Oh my God,” she cries. “That was awful! So glad to be out of there! Everything hurts!”  
Clutching her side, she allows herself a moment to rest before taking her disguise out of the box. Every movement makes her wince; she notices blood coming from her nose.  
“Man,” she half-chuckles. “I haven’t had a beat-down like that since Ladies’ Night at the tavern.”  
Slowly, delicately, she changes into the demon cat suit. It looks exactly what Bean wore last time she was in Hell.  
“There,” she says. “Now, hopefully, I can walk around without getting my ass kicked!”  
Suddenly, a tiny sub-demon jumps out of the nearby trash. He leaps so high, he kicks her right in the throat. Landing, he punches her ankle, making her stumble down.  
“Ow!”  
“Quit talking to yourself,” shrieks the sub-demon. “It’s freaking annoying!” It leaves the alley muttering angrily under its breath.  
Bean moves to leave the alley, when the sky opens up nearby. Rare sunlight shines through, but only for a moment, long enough to callously drop a lone soul: A man with a muscular silhouette and longish hair.   
Bean squints and stares. The man’s screams last plenty long enough for her to recognize it.  
“Pendergast? What the hell?”


End file.
